These hours
by JennyWren
Summary: Nadir is lying awake at night and tries to figure out why on earth he has ended up next to Erik. Slash!


**Author's note:** This story was written for the alternative couples fanfiction exchange on POL. It's for Mary Sue, who wanted an Erik / Nadir story with brandy. Cheers!

**Dedication:** I'd like to dedicate this to my darling Black Priestess. Don't worry, my dear. If I ever manage to do it, you'll be the first to know.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters from "The Phantom of the Opera". They belong to Gaston Leroux / Andrew Lloyd Webber.

**These hours**

Looking out of the window, I saw that it was dark outside. But then, that fact didn't say anything about the actual time. In Erik's realm, it was always dark outside, a state which I hadn't grown used to yet. Maybe it took more than a few days to do so, and I wasn't sure whether I truly wanted it. I wasn't even sure whether I truly wanted to stay here… in this world of never-ending darkness… at Erik's side.

I rolled onto my back, giving a little sigh. Yes, it had to be night, because I was lying in bed. I smiled to myself. Even with my mind a little drowsy, I realised what a peculiar logic that was. But then, here in Erik's world, things that were completely normal everywhere else had to be explained, had to be fought for. Things such as sleep.

When I had come to Paris to visit Erik for the first time in years a few days previously, he had looked as if he hadn't slept for weeks. He had already had a very irregular day-and-night rhythm in Persia, so many years ago, but now it had become much worse. His nerves obviously fuelled by a combination of too much drink and too little food, he had been so nervous that he hadn't been able to sit still for more than a minute at a time. His body had been in constant motion.

And what a body it had been! I wouldn't have believed it possible, but he had become even thinner than he had been when I had last met him. His face, or at least the part of it I had seen, had more than ever resembled a skull, its cheeks hollow and the eyes lying deep in their sockets. His clothes had been hanging down his body like from a coatrack. It had been an alarming sight.

Of course there had been no need to ask what had happened to cause those changes in him. The news had been all over the papers. People in the streets had been talking about little else than the mysterious events at the Opéra Populaire which had involved the Phantom, the Vicomte de Chagny and Mlle. Christine Daaé. Most of the people I had overheard had thought it a shame that the police had already given up looking for the infamous Opera Ghost, but for me it had been good. There had been only two policemen guarding the main entrance, so that no one had seen me use the side entrance into the building.

"She's gone, Daroga," Erik had said when I had come into the living room, not bothering to greet me or ask how I had been since the last time we had seen each other. Somehow it had been almost comforting that underneath the changed appearance, there had still been the old selfishness.

"I know," I had given back simply, pulling off my travelling cloak and sitting down in the armchair next to his unceremoniously. "Perhaps she'll come back, though," I had added, more because he had looked so miserable than because I had truly believed it. Making my way to the opera, I had heard more than once that Mlle.Daaé was called Comtess de Chagny now.

"Nonsense," he had cut across me, jumping up and starting to pace the length of the room. "By the time she'll come back, I'll be dead. I made her promise to bury me. Maybe she'll at least show that much respect."

I watched him for a few moments, taking in his appearance, before retorting:

"Well, if you go on like this, she'll return soon then.". He had looked so sickly that it had been a small miracle that he had still been alive.

He had thrown me a scornful glance.

"What do you know?" he had asked bitterly. "Your wife has been dead for years. What do you know about how much I love Christine?"

"Nothing," I had replied truthfully. "Unless you tell me." With those words I had patted the seat of the armchair he had sat in before. It had been an offer, and he had accepted it, sitting down and offering me a brandy with a generous wave of his hand.

The rest of the evening was a little blurred in my mind, for I wasn't used to drinking much. Staring at the dark ceiling, I tried to remember everything, but couldn't. The first part was still relatively clear. It had mostly been a monologue by Erik, a hymn on Christine. I had heard more about her than I had ever wanted to know. At first it had been praise, but the more he had talked and the more he had drunk, the more bitter he had become, abusing her mercurial character in a language so colourful that it still made me blush to think about it.

After a few more drinks he had become cynical, even more cynical than I knew him.

"It was so stupid of me to think she could ever love me!" he had exclaimed. "Me – a monster! An oddity! A madman!"

I could still remember that I had hardly said anything, for I had known that every word would only fuel his self-loathing. Instead, I had kept filling our glasses. Maybe I had been hoping he'd simply fall asleep at some point.

But he hadn't, which confirmed my suspicion that he had not sitten in that room, drinking, for the first time since that girl had left him. He had only grown tearful. If I concentrated hard, I could still hear his voice in my head, and it still cut into my heart like a knife.

"I love her more than anyone else in the world, Daroga. What am I supposed to do with all those feelings, now that she's gone? There are so many things I wanted to tell her, so much I wanted to do…" Then he had looked at me with that piercing gaze of his for what had felt like eternity. Even the memory made me feel very warm, and I pushed the blanket down a few inches to prepare myself for the best, if rather blurred, part of the evening.

When I closed my eyes, the pictures were there at once. I saw him get up from his armchair, his usual predatory manner of walking slightly diminished by the fact that he had been swaying, and come over to me.

"All those feelings…" he had repeated, almost as if in wonder. "All those feelings…"

And then he had leaned down and crushed his lips against mine, and I had been too surprised to protest. All I had thought was that he had needed this moment, that he had needed me.

The time after the kiss was a whirlwind of almost forgotten, unknown and exciting sensations in my head. Lips wandering over skin… hands tugging at pieces of clothing… bodies pressed against each other eagerly, reacting to the slightest touch… panting, sobbing, moaning, gasping… I had been overwhelmed by the things I had felt, the things I had made him feel. It had been amazing.

The moment he had been spent, Erik had rolled over on the floor on which we had landed a while earlier and had fallen asleep. It had been up to me to finish myself and bring him to bed… to the only bed I had found, in what I now knew had been the girl's room. I had told myself that the danger of him hitting his head or another part of his body in his drunken slumber would have been much too big in his coffin, but even back then I hadn't believed it. A coffin was for one person. The bed had been for the both of us.

The next morning had been far less terrible than I had thought it would be. True, Erik hadn't been pleased about finding himself in Mlle.Daaé's bed, yet since a pounding headache had kept him from shouting, he had calmed down rather quickly. He hadn't mentioned the night with a single word. At first I had assumed he hadn't remembered it, but now that it had happened again and again, I knew better.

At daytime we acted as if I was merely a visitor, an old friend who had come by to stay for a few days. We had polite conversations about everything and nothing, and I tried to bring a little order into his life, preparing meals and forcing him to eat as well and making sure he didn't ponder for more than some hours at a time. But no matter how hard we pretended nothing had happened, there was a certain tension between us. Sometimes we would touch accidentally and nearly jump into the air because of the feelings even those little touches created inside us. At least it was like that for me. He had always known how to hide his emotions.

At night, however, he didn't do so. Once the brandy we consumed in the evening had mellowed his shell of indifference, he grew strangely passionate… and desperate. He clung to me with all his might, he groped me so frantically that his fingers left bruises, and his kisses drew blood more than once. I never complained. When I had first seen him, I had been shocked about how lifeless he had seemed. At least he was lively now.

I had no idea whether he had any kind of feeling for me. We never talked during those hours that usually started in the living room and ended in the very bed I was lying in at the moment. And by day we didn't talk about it either. I thought about it very often, though, wondering whether there were any feelings involved at all, except for despair and loneliness. What would he have done if I hadn't been there? Would he have simply drunk himself into oblivion every night or would he have looked for someone else as outlet of his frustration and sadness?

Sometimes I also wondered why it had been me, a man. Had he wanted to have something different because it had been a woman who had left him? Or did he think it less of a betrayal towards Christine if he only did those things with a man and not with another woman? It were questions I'd never have an answer to, and yet they kept flashing up in my mind.

And what did I feel for him? That one was even more of a riddle, yet unlike the other ones, I chose not to think about it too often. Erik was my friend. He needed me. That was why I was here. It was a nice approach, but it only explained the days. Friends didn't do the things he and I did at night. I couldn't justify it as help either, for I enjoyed it far too much and took a far too active part in it. I had never done anything like it before with another man, but for some reason it felt wonderfully right. And _that_ was why I was still here.

A soft groan made me stop pondering. Turning onto my other side, I faced Erik. I couldn't make out his features in the darkness, but it wasn't necessary. I had seen him a hundred times in the last days, sobbing in misery, shouting in anger and moaning in the throes of passion. I knew what he looked like with the mask and without it.

At the moment he wasn't wearing it. As much as I'd have liked to interpret it as a sign of affection, I knew it probably was pure convenience. He didn't bother covering his face because he didn't care what I thought of him. There always came a point on these late-night discussions with myself at which I grew bitter. It was the point when I remembered the name he cried out in ecstasy while I made him come, the name he whispered every morning before he opened his eyes. It would always be _her_ name, followed by a look of disappointment as he realised that, once more, it was not her. Sometimes I could hardly stand it. I gave a tired little smile. Maybe I did feel something for him other than friendship.

A glass of water would help me come to my senses. I needed to get away from this room for a while, away from the oppressing darkness. Or else I could finally leave for good. Yes, maybe that would be the best solution. It would save me from thinking about what I felt for him, and surely I'd be happier without him, without the constant feeling of never being good enough. Yes.

However, I didn't get farther than moving my legs in the direction of the edge of the bed before Erik stirred. This was unusual. Normally, his sleep was very deep, undoubtedly an effect of the brandy. But then, if I recalled it correctly, he hadn't drunken quite as much last night.

He didn't open his eyes, but his lips parted to let out a single word:

"Nadir?". It was the first time in years that he had used that name.

Feeling the warm glow in my chest that only he could cause, I brought my legs into their original position.

"Yes, Erik, it's me," I whispered, leaning over him to kiss his forehead. "I'm with you. Go back to sleep." And that was what we did.

**The End**


End file.
